That’s why I get a little discouraged when I look at my Facebook/Twitter follower numbers. The numbers are growing but they’re certainly not in the thousands– yet!

I’m also a fairly positive person. So rather than take myself to task for lower numbers, here’s a little pep talk I’ve prepared:

MY PEP TALK (as given to myself)

Jane, you are a highly skilled book publicity professional.

After years of working with traditional media, you’ve embraced the new methods of social media with great enthusiasm and excitement and continue to learn something new every day.

Your social media numbers continue to rise as you learn new strategies for building followers by reading worthwhile articles and how-to’s (often via Facebook and Twitter links!).

Instead of obsessing over how many friends or followers you have (or don’t have), pay more attention to how social media works and how you can use it to your advantage.

End of pep talk

It’s important to keep in mind that a person might have thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers but if they don’t have the right followers these numbers are useless and irrelevant.

Here’s a short list of the kind of followers you want to have:

People who will pay attention to your message and care about its content

People who will continue to pay attention to your message and care about its content

People who will share and re-tweet your message to others

People you’re interested in following back– so there’s an interchange of news and ideas

Of course, you should always be thinking of ways to build your number of social media fans and followers (see related links for some incredibly helpful tips and and suggestions). But don’t give up on Facebook or Twitter just because you don’t have a million followers right now.